Tidal torment

When I connected up my Nova, my dealer recommended a 1000Mbps switch, so I don't know if your wired connection is throttling your stream? If your MacBook is wired, try swapping the the connection into the N272 and see if it works?

easeback1 posted:

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N272 is on a 75 Mbps wired connection
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That seems odd, the wired Ethernet connection to the N272 is 100Base-T (i.e. 100Mbps, not 75Mbps).

From where do you get the 75Mbps figure?

It's almost certainly not a Tidal issue.  Have your got the "stay connected" option ticked on the Naim app.  Are you on the latest version of the Naim App?

Is your Wifi ok?

I imagine the 75 Mbps is the OP’s download speed. If everything is wired and has been reloaded and reset it’s hard to know what can be amiss. I’ve used Tidal in the past with my 272 and it’s been rock solid via the inbuilt Tidal. 

Sorry for confusion -- yes, 75Mbps is my typical download speed (roughly the same using ethernet or wi-fi).  And yes, using latest 2.8 version of Naim app set to stay connected. 

FWIW, I installed the Audirvana OS X app and get the same Tidal fail-to-load problem. In other words, standalone Tidal works fine for me, but Tidal integrated into a separate app does not. 

Sent a crash report to Damien @ Audirvana. Maybe he'll be able to shed some light. 

Have you tried turning Audirvana off, and using just the Naim app. Maybe something is getting confused. 

I seem to remember that you have had issues with Tidal before?! Do you find streaming from a local NAS or similar to work OK? If so, you could be a prime candidate for the BubbleUPnP workaround, which is reasonably easy to set up, and free if you have a device on your network that can run it, such as a Synology or QNAP NAS, RPi, or a Mac or PC. Quite a few forum members have tried this, and successfully use it to run Tidal or Qobuz, some reporting better sound quality than using built in Tidal on a Naim streamer. Use the free Lumin app to control it.

If you're interested in giving it a try, have a look at this: https://bubblesoftapps.com/bub...oad_and_installation

There are threads on here that will help you set it up if you get stuck.

Thanks for the replies. Yes, I had Tidal problems when I bought the N272. Thought they'd gone away when I upgraded my router, but seems they're back again. 

Audirvana support suggested a possible DNS issue, and I know that Tidal recommend using Google's DNS servers (8.8.8.8, etc.). But which devices to change? Router only? N272? Android tablet?

Thanks also for the BubbleUPnP tip. I have a Synology NAS in the same system (works fine), so I guess that's the next thing to try. Will report back.

My 272’s DNS is the same as its gateway: 192.168.1.1, if that helps. 

Guys, the DNS is absolutely nothing to do with this... I wish I could shoot the person who started that fictitious rumour.. it causes soo much confusion. The issue is purely and simply round trip delay related of the media data transfer... the greater the two way latency the more likely the streamer TCP buffer will be exhausted. Download speed can help, but only reliably so if the upload speed is not too much slower... above 1 to 10 ratios unless very lightly loaded internet links, then the download speed starts to  becomes a little irrelevant... and you should focus more on the upload speed... TCP is two way...good old  marketeers again.....

A solution is to use a proxy as HH says such as BubbleSoft, but you won’t be able to use the Naim app inbuilt integration.Also some Virgin hub routers can be problematic here as well.. although there is a recent firmware update from Virgin  that mitigates but not eliminates the issue.

Nope, disagree with Simon - Google DNS usually finds a good Tidal server closer to the OP's location.

Audirvana is an app running on a Mac or a Windows 10, it would never have any issue with the PC/Mac network buffering,

I only have a 37mbps typical download speed ..and use wireless to the 272 ...and 98% of the time I get rock solid connection...so it doesn't sound like a speed issue

Frank Yang posted:

Nope, disagree with Simon - Google DNS usually finds a good Tidal server closer to the OP's location.

Audirvana is an app running on a Mac or a Windows 10, it would never have any issue with the PC/Mac network buffering,

The DNS entry on the streamer just points to the internet router, and that forwards any DNS requests to whatever DNS servers are defined in the router.

Then set up the router then, plenty of well documented Google DNS config setup out there.

Simon-in-Suffolk posted:

Guys, the DNS is absolutely nothing to do with this... I wish I could shoot the person who started that fictitious rumour.. it causes soo much confusion. The issue is purely and simply round trip delay related of the media data transfer... the greater the two way latency the more likely the streamer TCP buffer will be exhausted. Download speed can help, but only reliably so if the upload speed is not too much slower... above 1 to 10 ratios unless very lightly loaded internet links, then the download speed starts to  becomes a little irrelevant... and you should focus more on the upload speed... TCP is two way...good old  marketeers again.....

A solution is to use a proxy as HH says such as BubbleSoft, but you won’t be able to use the Naim app inbuilt integration.Also some Virgin hub routers can be problematic here as well.. although there is a recent firmware update from Virgin  that mitigates but not eliminates the issue.

Simon, I suggested BubbleUPnP because I thought it might buffer the Tidal stream better than the OPs 272 can, but I have no idea how Bubble would buffer it, so it was just a hunch. Maybe you have some understanding of how Bubble works in this respect? 

There is a small disadvantage in having to flit between the Lumin app and the Naim app, but other than that, you don't lose any functionality that I can see. You can even use Naim multiroom with it.  

Frank Yang posted:

Nope, disagree with Simon - Google DNS usually finds a good Tidal server closer to the OP's location.

Audirvana is an app running on a Mac or a Windows 10, it would never have any issue with the PC/Mac network buffering,

Frank, I can honestly say you are wrong with respect to RTD and TCP buffer exhaustion.... the mechanism doesn’t work like that. The actual ip addresses for media transfers are advised as part of the internal Tidal indexing administration in its internal  protocol exchanges based on when you look up and spool a track. Each track may well be sourced from a different cloud server from riders such as Akamai and the like.. and is determined after authentication where the user is identified. The media server is a complete URI.  Now because the Tidal indexing system can use different URL for media then you can find that some media may may stutter because of a slightly larger latency than others due to local server conditions.( this has nothing to do with the www.tidal.com FQDM) .. this can happen when near edge conditions.

With respect to the internet, once your ISP  connects to a tier 1 or 2 network provider the location in the world becomes effectively irrelevant with respect to the latencies we are discussing here. In terms of latencies that will affect TCP behaviours in our Naim streamers  this will almost certainly most likely occur at the connectivity to and from the internet (regular WAN design principles)... and in this case most likely with your local ISP connection, your home router, and your ISP backhaul... or occasional genuine server congestion 

Your point about about not having buffered game problems with Mac or PC, is precisely my point, it’s  because they have larger TCP buffers than the limited resources of the (legacy) streamers so can accommodate greater RTD in the TCP flows. As I am sure you are aware there is a direct relationship between TCP flow, RTD and segment buffer sizing... fundamental network data flow control design.

i have spent many an evening trawling over latency traces with Naim engineers looking at this in the early days. The way Naim originally mitigated this was to optimise the TCP stack  code to process as quickly as possible and undertake some different dynamic behaviours at the start of media transfers. 

ChrisSU posted:

Simon-in-Suffolk posted:

Guys, the DNS is absolutely nothing to do with this... I wish I could shoot the person who started that fictitious rumour.. it causes soo much confusion. The issue is purely and simply round trip delay related of the media data transfer... the greater the two way latency the more likely the streamer TCP buffer will be exhausted. Download speed can help, but only reliably so if the upload speed is not too much slower... above 1 to 10 ratios unless very lightly loaded internet links, then the download speed starts to  becomes a little irrelevant... and you should focus more on the upload speed... TCP is two way...good old  marketeers again.....

A solution is to use a proxy as HH says such as BubbleSoft, but you won’t be able to use the Naim app inbuilt integration.Also some Virgin hub routers can be problematic here as well.. although there is a recent firmware update from Virgin  that mitigates but not eliminates the issue.

Simon, I suggested BubbleUPnP because I thought it might buffer the Tidal stream better than the OPs 272 can, but I have no idea how Bubble would buffer it, so it was just a hunch. Maybe you have some understanding of how Bubble works in this respect? 

Chris you are spot on.. but don’t think application buffers or audio buffers on streamers etc.. what we are talking about is TCP window segment buffers. The greater the RTD, the larger these need to be for a given TCP throughput. The streamers (certainly the legacy ones) have limited resources here and so respond best to local network like conditions for higher throughputs. A proxy will almost certainly have larger TCP memory buffers, and so will accommodate larger RTD, and then create a new layer 3 transport to the local streamer over the local network, effectively removing the RTD TCP buffer effect from the Tidal/ home server link... at the cost of total end to end application latency which is irrelevant here with the times we are talking about.

Tried both Google DNS and Open DNS settings on my router, but no perceived benefit so far -- HT to Simon.

Also came across an old forum post from another N272 / Tidal user in Thailand (there can't be that many of us) who had the same problems.

I'm just thinking out loud here, but suppose Tidal were having capacity issues in certain regions. Presumably they'd have some ability to prioritise customer traffic e.g. those accessing Tidal directly vs. those accessing via other platforms (Naim, Audirvana)?

No idea if that would have any commercial logic, but it might explain some of what's going on...